President Joe Biden is taking fire for comments he made about his $3.5 trillion legislation just as the bill faces a deeply split Congress.
Biden made headlines for claiming the bill would cost “zero dollars,” despite media reports and members of both parties commonly naming the bill’s cost at $3.5 trillion for the last several months.
“My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars,” Biden wrote on Twitter. “Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America. And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.”
The administration argues tax increases will offset the bill’s expenses, something that is very much in flux given Democrats’ hesitancy about parts of the bill, and the taxes to pay for it.
Even still, critics took issue with the claim of a zero cost, even if Biden does manage to include enough tax increases to fund the legislation.
“The $3.5 trillion in spending and tax credits combined with at least $2 trillion in tax hikes will add to the debt and have a tremendous cost to the economy and to the health of American families,” David Ditch, a budget expert at the Heritage Foundation, said.
“The taxes will hit families taking home as little as $30,000 per year, violating President Biden’s promise, reduce private sector investments that create jobs and opportunities for workers, and put America at a disadvantage with our global competitors. Huge increases in welfare spending will discourage work and make families increasingly dependent on government, which is exactly the wrong approach to increasing wealth for low-income households.”
“The bottom line is that the costs are real and deserve more attention from the media,” he added.
Earlier this month, Democrats proposed raising the top tax rates for individuals to 39.6% from 37%, and for corporations to 26.5% from 21%.
Some have estimated the package will exceed $3.5 trillion costs. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated the bill could cost $5.5 trillion over 10 years.
“All government spending consumes resources taken from the private sector and thus would generally shrink private GDP,” said Chris Edwards, an economic expert at the Cato Institute.
“Contrary to Biden, $3.5 trillion more government spending would likely cost the private economy not just $3.5 trillion but probably more than that. That’s because extracting every additional $1 of taxes causes about $1.50 of damage or ‘deadweight losses’ to the private economy. When taxes rise, individuals and businesses reduce their productive activities and private output falls.”
The overall price tag has been a key sticking point for Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, both of whom have explicitly said they cannot vote for the measure because of it’s $3.5 trillion cost. A less expensive plan may be able to get their vote, they said.
“These are not indications of an economy that requires trillions in additional spending,” Manchin said. “Every elected leader is chosen to make difficult decisions. Adding trillions of dollars more to nearly $29 trillion of national debt, without any consideration of the negative effects on our children and grandchildren, is one of those decisions that has become far too easy in Washington. Given the current state of the economic recovery, it is simply irresponsible to continue spending at levels more suited to respond to a Great Depression or Great Recession – not an economy that is on the verge of overheating.”
Biden’s comments drew sharp pushback from Republican lawmakers.
“Joe Biden thinks his $3.5 trillion spending bill will cost ‘zero dollars,’” U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said. “Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi doesn’t want to ‘talk about numbers and dollars.’ Why can’t they just be honest? They’re going to raise your taxes.”
Business leaders also have criticized Biden’s spending plan, saying it poses a serious threat to the nation’s economy.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a six-figure ad campaign to warn Americans and lawmakers about the legislation.
“This reconciliation bill is effectively 100 bills in one representing every big government idea that’s never been able to pass in Congress,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne Clark said.
“The bill is an existential threat to America’s fragile economic recovery and future prosperity. We will not find durable or practical solutions in one massive bill that is equivalent to more than twice the combined budgets of all 50 states. The success of the bipartisan infrastructure negotiations provides a much better model for how Congress should proceed in addressing America’s problems.”
Critics also pointed to the inefficiency of the federal government, saying the money taken from the private sector is often wasted by officials.
“Some new government spending may be worth more than the private spending it displaces, but I have not seen any detailed cost-benefit analyses showing that is the case with the Democratic plans,” Edwards said.
“Democrats are simply guessing that their new spending is higher value than the private spending it will displace, but there is little or no evidence of that. Besides, if there was new, high-value spending that the government could do, then it would more efficiently be handled by state governments, not the horribly mismanaged federal government.”
Biden regime to reduce Border Patrol manpower via vaccine mandate firings even as the Biden Border Crisis reaches fever pitch
Tonight the Republicans of the House Judiciary Committee, led in a letter by Rep. Jim Jordan, claimed that a whistleblower informed them the Biden administration has given “official notice” to the U.S. Border Patrol for agents to accept one of the controversial COVID-19 vaccinated by November or lose their jobs.
This comes after Joe Biden promised to make agents “pay,” citing the debunked claim that agents used a “whip” to attack Haitian migrants, when in reality, the photo depicted standard horse reigns used to direct the animal.
In a tweet, the House Judiciary GOP Twitter account wrote, “Whistleblower alleges that Border Patrol agents have been given official notice that they must be fully vaccinated by November 2021 or face termination.” In the letter, Rep. Jim Jordan highlights the risk behind reducing the number of border patrol agents as the Biden immigration crisis continues to reach fever pitch.
🚨 #BREAKING: Whistleblower alleges that Border Patrol agents have been given official notice that they must be fully vaccinated by November 2021 or face termination. pic.twitter.com/5OytCtebe4
“The Biden border crisis continues to worsen,” the letter began. “We have learned that the Department of Homeland Security has threatened to fire Border Patrol officials who refuse to comply with President Biden’s vaccine mandate.” The letter states that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s “failure to support these federal law-enforcement officials will only make the Biden border crisis work and make our country less secure.”
The letter describes the Biden regime as “derelict in its duty” to secure the border, and notes that the Border Patrol has “encountered 1,263,295 illegal aliens” along the border since Biden assumed office last January.
“For years and through multiple administrations, it has been difficult to recruit and retain men and women to serve in U.S. Border Patrol,” the letter admits, highlighting the risk of losing agents during an immigration crisis. “Their job is made even harder when senior officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, spread false accusations of cruelty,” referencing the debunked “whip” conspiracy theory. Jordan notes that Biden also cited “the misinformation” and “vowed the Border Patrol officers ‘will pay.’”
National File was among the first publications to debunk the ignorant claim of “whips” being used against Haitian migrants, a claim which surfaced and was breathlessly repeated by the media after Border Patrol officers were captured on horseback with reigns in their hands. More recently, the photographer who captured the viral photographs has himself declared that no officers carried or utilized whips against the illegal aliens from Haiti.
While, as the House Judiciary GOP noted, Biden regurgitated the debunked claim as recently as September 24, Axios, a favorite website of D.C. residents, recently deleted its tweet claiming whips were used.
The Vatican is set to punish employees who refuse to comply with COVID-19 certification by not paying them.
Yes, really.
Vatican staffers who are unable to prove they’d been jabbed or who refuse to pay for expensive negative COVID tests will be considered “unjustly absent” and paid no salary.
The new rules will go into force from October 1st onwards.
As we highlighted last week, the Italian government has also passed a decree applying to both the private and public sector ordering companies to withhold pay from workers who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Those found working without the pass face fines of up to €1,500 euros after it was extended as a condition of entry for museums, stadiums, pubs, restaurants, and schools.
The unvaccinated were also banned from using long distance public transport, meaning that holidays, travel for work and visiting relatives has become impossible for many.
A sliver of good news is that Italians continue to hit the streets to protest the measures, with one video showing police officers removing their helmets in solidarity with the demonstrators.
REPORT: Italian Police Officers remove their helmets in solidarity with the anti-tyranny pro-freedom demonstrators. pic.twitter.com/ZbUKVGpkfO
Despite many Christians asserting a religious exemption to the vaccination, the Vatican itself is offering no such workaround.
Pope Francis has been a vehement supporter of the mass vaccination program, asserting that humanity “has a history of friendship with vaccines.”
“The Vatican has said that it considers it acceptable for Catholics to use vaccines, even those that use stem cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research,” reports the Mail.
Wow, so Christian!
As we highlight in the video below, by promoting vaccines and by proxy vaccine passports, the Pope is literally helping to grease the skids for what many fear could eventually turn into a ‘Mark of the Beast’ system that will demand total compliance in order to buy or sell.
And that’s far from his only anti-Christian position.
With less than 48 hours left in Fiscal Year 2021, the Border Patrol has already surpassed the total number of migrant apprehensions made in any year along the southwest border since the agency’s inception in 1924. A source within Customs and Border Protection notes the unofficial apprehension record shows more than 1,646,000 for the year as of Wednesday.
The total reflects arrests made within the nine southwest Border Patrol Sectors from California to Texas. According to CBP, the previous record stood since 2000 when 1,643,679 were arrested.
The source says the final apprehension number will increase by at least 10,000 when the fiscal year officially closes on September 30 and is reported near mid-October.
The total, according to the source, does not include more than 2,000 migrants arrested by the Border Patrol along the northern and coastal borders of the United States. The number also does not include migrant apprehensions made by CBP officers at ports of entry.
The source says the northern and coastal Border Patrol sectors show lagging totals compared to the past due to staffing shortages caused by the movement of personnel to the southwest.
In a news interview on Sunday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says the increase in apprehensions is nothing new. Mayorkas told Fox News Chris Wallace, “We are certainly seeing a large number here this year, but in 2019, we saw a large number. In 2014, in 2010. This is nothing new,” he says.
The statement contradicts the reality that the total number of migrant apprehensions along the southwest border with Mexico is higher than any recorded yearly apprehension statistic, dating to 1925 when 22,199 migrants were arrested by the Border Patrol–mostly on horseback.
Barack Obama is facing backlash for his $500 million presidential library in Chicago. The former president and first lady, Michelle, broke ground on the library in Jackson Park on Tuesday.
Critics have argued the construction will destroy the historic park and gentrify south Chicago. However, Obama believes the library will serve as a unifying point for the city during chaotic times.
“…we think it can speak to some of the most central struggles of our time,” stated Obama. “We are living through a moment of rapid disruption, in technology, in the global economy, in our social arrangements and in our environment.”
An advocacy group known as Protect Our Parks went all the way to Supreme Court in an effort to halt the construction of Obama’s library. It argued that the project, in fact, violated environmental laws. The group also pointed out construction would demolish “historical resources, parkland and trees.”
“The truth is any time you do a big project, unless you’re in the middle of a field somewhere, you know, and it’s on private property, there’s always going to be some people who say, ‘Well, but we don’t want change. We’re worried about it. We don’t know how it’s going to turn out,’” said Obama in defense of his library.
The library, which the former president has insisted will inspire future generations, is expected to be finished in 2025.
Self-appointed pope of all New Yorkers Kathy Hochul appeared at a megachurch to preach her COVID doctrines, saying ‘I need you to be my apostles’ for preaching universal vaccination to the unsaved.
Anyone with a developed religious sensibility has been aware of the religious nature of COVID-19 terror from pretty early in the lockdowns. The evidence is becoming increasingly striking.
Last month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul accented this in a particularly weird way by wearing a necklace formed into the word “Vaxed” as its talisman.
Check out the necklace NY Gov. Kathy Hochul is wearing today.
Just a few days ago, Hochul also gave a press conference in which she claimed she is the ultimate religious authority over all New Yorkers no matter their actual religion. “There are not legitimate religious exemptions [to COVID injections] because the leaders of all the organized religions have said there is no legitimate reason,” she said.
“I’m not aware of a sanctioned religious exemption from any organized religion, in fact, they are encouraging the opposite,” Hochul also said. “Everybody from the pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated.”
Even though Catholics do believe the pope is a final authority on their religion, unlike people of other “organized” faiths including many other varieties of Christian, Catholics have this marvelous little theological technicality helping lift their burden of currently enduring one of the worst modern popes ever. It is that every random thing the pope does or says does not define church doctrine.
Only under special and carefully defined circumstances do even the pope’s utterances become Catholic religious law, and the pope almost never employs this authority. And even a pope as theologically unfettered as Francis has not required COVID vaccination of Catholics. So not only is Hochul completely ignorant of one of the basic tenets of an important religion in her own state and country, she is also breathtakingly arrogant to claim that her political opinions should trump every single New Yorker’s sacred conscience on this serious matter or any other.
Self-appointed pope of all New Yorkers Kathy Hochul also appeared at a megachurch to preach her COVID doctrines, telling the congregation that COVID-19 injections “come[] from God” and “I need you to be my apostles” for preaching universal vaccination to the unsaved.
Science: Natural immunity after COVID disease is stronger and longer lasting than vaccine immunity.@GovKathyHochul: The vaccine comes from God. It is mandated.
Q: For COVID recovered, how about a religious exemption for those who believe in science instead of God? https://t.co/3yNR4tBx4x
It’s all very weird and creepy, and it’s going to only get weirder and creepier the longer the strangely millions of people terrified out of their wits about COVID continue like this. That’s because the gap between reality and their deeply held religious beliefs is going to keep growing, and keep getting harder to explain away with yet another layer of lies.
That’s what happens in the best-case scenario with a cult: The gap between what believers are told and what they can see with their own eyes eventually grows so large that it turns into disillusionment and eventually disbelief. The worst-case scenario? We’ll get to that.
It is an old truism that one’s god is what one most loves and fears. For COVID cultists, their love and their fear are mirror images: Physical suffering and death.
This is why there’s a correlation between the strength of a person’s Christianity and his lack of fear of COVID: Because Christians do not ultimately most revere suffering or death. Better, as Jesus Christ says in the gospel of Matthew, to “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” than to “fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”
For pagans, however, this present world is all they have. Their decaying body is the only thing to which they can cling. And clinging to it they most certainly are — one might say with a death grip that is reaching for all of us.
The emergence of COVID has brought pagans’ refusal to consider their immortality right in front of their eyes every waking moment. Looking into that great, yawning darkness of believing there’s no life after death is more than many can bear.
So they invent rituals. Wear talismans. Engage in weird and frankly grotesque compulsions. And try to compel the rest of us to join their cult, in a desperate attempt to alleviate their existential terror.
It’s clearly a religious ritual to believe that the evil death god won’t come near only if you are engaged in morally significant mass actions, while he will swoop down suddenly if you are engaged in an immoral act like living without demonstrating your great fear of and respect for him or openly rejecting his commands. If the evil spirit theoretically goes away when you engage in sacred rituals like wearing ceremonial face decorations, despite the lack of strong objective evidence this is actually true, you are in a cult. Or a false religion.
You are also in a cult when there is nothing anyone can say or demonstrate that could possibly change your mind about your beliefs or even get you to admit uncertainty. Being impervious to data and reason is a hallmark of the psychological capture on which cults feed.
You are in a cult or an overweening religion when you use or support the use of manipulation, pressure, and fear tactics to get people to obey you instead of allowing them the freedom to make up their own minds and live as they choose. You are getting cultish when you become wildly obsessed with rituals and purity. You are in a cult when you isolate yourself and demand to isolate others so that the only information allowed to circulate supports your beliefs.
“A very important aspect of cult is the idea that if you leave the cult, horrible things will happen to you,” says President of the International Cultic Studies Association Steve Eichel. “This is important, and it’s important to realize. That people outside of a cult are potential members, so they’re not looked upon as negatively as people inside the cult who then leave the cult.”
Eichel’s top advice? “Beware of any kind of pressure. That’s probably the single most important advice I can give anyone. Any kind of pressure to make a quick decision about becoming involved in any intensive kind of activity or organization.” Oh, you mean maybe like forcing people into “two weeks to stop the spread” and everything that followed under threat of being implicated in mass body counts?
Another endemic tactic to cults and other kinds of power relationships is scapegoating. Scapegoating means identifying some person or group of people as “the evil ones” who are at fault for every bad thing that happens.
With the COVID cult, the scapegoats have varied, but they are brutalized just the same: Donald Trump. People who supported Trump. People who objected to mass mail-in ballot chaos using COVID as an excuse. People who wouldn’t stay home. People who protested having their life’s work destroyed. People who won’t wear masks. Now the “unvaccinated,” even though many of them have better immunity due to naturally defeating the disease.
Clearly a minority of people with a majority of power have weaponized billions of people’s existential dread of death. But, rationally speaking, attempting to stop COVID, like trying to stop death, is ultimately impossible. It is a futile attempt to control what is in reality beyond any human ability to control.
Attempting to understand, revere, and interact with what is beyond human abilities to control is what religion is for. And right now a frighteningly large proportion of the American public wants to give god-like powers to the temporal and highly fallible state in a doomed attempt to relieve their existential emptiness. In Australia, they have become willing to send armored men with massive guns to seize and lock up people over even trivial COVID heresies.
Humanity has seen this kind of thing before. Previously, we’ve called it things like theocracy, fascism, tyranny, and totalitarianism. That’s where this is headed in many, many more places if more people don’t snap out of the COVID death cult — soon.
President Joe Biden’s approval rating is on the decline as he faces a key moment in Congress for passing large parts of his agenda, according to a new poll.
House Democratic leadership is seeking to pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, but progressive lawmakers are pushing for the House to pass a $3.5 trillion social welfare spending bill first, although the latter has not yet been finalized and is still under negotiation within the caucus. As of Tuesday evening, the infrastructure bill lacked the votes to pass the House. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday signaled a willingness to delay the vote on the infrastructure bill planned for Thursday.
Amid the negotiations on Capitol Hill about the president’s agenda, an ABC News/Ipsos poll found that although a majority of adults still approve of Biden’s job performance on many issues since the poll was conducted last month, his approval rating has dropped.
Republicans and independents primarily drove the decline, but ABC noted that Biden’s “lackluster” approval rating from Democrats is lower than most presidents “typically enjoy” from members of their own party.
The poll found that people approve of Biden’s infrastructure plan by 55% to 44%, but disapproval of the plan has jumped by 9 points since last month, when 62% approved of the plan and 35% disapproved.
Most people approve of Biden’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and economic recovery, but his support on those issues also dipped. Meanwhile, people disapprove of Biden’s response to gun violence, crime, Afghanistan, and immigration and the southern border. Each of those issues saw a jump in disapproval.
(The Righting) While almost all major conservative news websites experienced audience declines in August, Newsmax posted its third straight month of year-over-year (YOY) traffic increases according to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of August 2021 mobile and desktop traffic based on Comscore data. Newsmax attracted 6,067,000 unique visitors in August 2021, up 72% from August 2020 when it drew 3,522,000 unique visitors. The Epoch Times was the only other conservative news outlet that increased its YOY audience in August in TheRighting’s top 20.
YOY traffic to DonaldJTrump.com, the website of the former president, continued to fall dramatically. A year ago, 20,251,000 unique visitors came to the website. However, in August, 2021, the website lost just over 19 million unique visitors dropping 95% in 12 months.
Foxnews.com continued its reign as the highest-ranked conservative website in TheRighting’s survey with 90,423,000 unique visitors last month. However, it recorded its ninth straight month of audience declines (-20%).
“I anticipate year-over-year traffic to conservative news sites to continue to fall over the next six months,” said Howard Polskin, President and Curator, TheRighting. “A year ago, our country was at the beginning of one of the most newsworthy periods in a generation. Unless some unforeseen events occur, the current news environment will not drive the huge audience numbers we saw in 2020 and early 2021.”
Leaders and Losers Among Top 20 Conservative News Websites for 2021
(by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)
Leaders
· Newsmax (+72%)
· The Epoch Times (+34%)
Losers
· CNSNews (-80%)
· The Federalist (-78%)
· Washington Examiner (-71%)
The three mainstream news brands TheRighting tracks each month also experienced YOY audience declines. Unique visitors dropped at Washingtonpost.com (-24%), The New York Times brand (-22%) and CNN.com (-19%).
Parler Talk
For the third straight month, traffic to Parler plunged as the site lost more than a million YOY unique visitors. The number of unique visitors for three conservative-friendly social media sites for August 2021 are as follows:
· Rumble (10,887,000; +368% vs year ago)
· Mewe (1,659,000; +124% vs year ago)
· Parler (673,000; -63% vs year ago
Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-defined list, including, but not limited to Foxnews.com, Breitbart.com, DailyCaller.com, WashingtonExaminer.com, WesternJournal.com, Washingtontimes.com, Total Digital Audience, August 2021, U.S.
“There are hundreds of Denver Police Officers who reached out to undersigned counsel to be included in this litigation. Many of these officers are considering resigning their post with Denver Police Department.”
Seven police officers employed by the Denver police department have filed a lawsuit against Mayor Michael Hancock, the Department of Public Health and Environment and its executive director agency Robert McDonald, and Denver police Chief Paul Pazen, over the vaccine mandates being instituted by the city.
The officers state that there are hundreds of more police within the department who are standing ready to resign if the mandates are not legally overturned.
Dewayne Rodgers, Jonathan Christian, Bart Stark, Rich Ziegler, Nick Elliott, David Curtiss, Les Tucker filed the lawsuit this week, writing, “With caution thrown to the winds, everyone — the young and healthy, the old, the previously recovered and naturally immune, even pregnant and breastfeeding women — is currently being pressured by governments, businesses and educational institutions to submit to a COVID inoculation with no assessment of the risks or benefits for each individual or any consideration of medical necessity or contraindication in each particular case.”
The filing continued, “The clear, immediate threat of irreparable harm to the Plantiffs regarding compliance with an unlawful public health order which mandates a medical procedure, including the punitive nature of the ‘reasonable accomodations’- coupled with the strong public interest of retaining adequate numbers of police officers- weigh heavily in favor of the requested injunctive relief.”
In conclusion, the filing noted that “There are hundreds of Denver Police Officers who reached out to undersigned counsel to be included in this litigation. Many of these officers are considering resigning their post with Denver Police Department.”
Mayor Michael Hancock complained about the lawsuit, telling CBS, “We find this to be regrettable and quite frankly selfish on behalf of these individuals to file this claim at this time. I think they are out of step with science.” Hancock bragged, “If you choose not to comply, you fired yourself.”
With so many geriatric politicians shuffling around Washington, D.C., verbal slipups sometimes happen that reveal things they shouldn’t.
Usually, it’s something like President Joe Biden’s admission that his handlers don’t want him taking questions from the press or when the 78-year-old is spinning one of his tall tales that’s easily debunked.
But now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 81, accidentally attributed the jewel of the Biden agenda to former President Barack Obama that left us wondering whether it was a sober revelation or just another “senior moment” from an elderly politician?
“Keep government open — we intend, we have to do those imminently, more imminently even to address the full Obama agenda of building back better,” Pelosi said to reporters during a House Democratic Leaders news conference Tuesday.
To be fair, Pelosi had just been comparing the fight with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling during the Obama administration to the one about to happen now under Biden.
Moreover, Pelosi is an elderly woman who could easily find herself muddling facts as her brain just can’t keep up and orient her to the proper date.
But it’s also true that Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is a tax-and-spend bonanza like his former boss’, complete with language about “making the tax code fairer and making the wealthiest and large corporations pay their fair share.”
Then there’s the way Obama famously admitted he would increase capital gains taxes for the sake of fairness regardless of any economic benefit to doing so, and Biden’s historic tax hike on the wealthy echoes the same class warfare game.
There are the overlapping promises to reduce health care premiums and costs in Biden’s agenda that sound similar to the promises made about Obamacare, though predictably it remains a problem to be solved even after Obama “fixed” it (funny how that works).
On a broader scale, the two are twinning when it comes to their handling of race relations, though Biden has taken the mask of civility off to stoke the flames of the dumpster fire that the issue has turned into.
Like Obama, the current president never misses the chance to divide along racial lines and attribute whatever he can to racism, though it doesn’t pack the same punch coming from an old white guy.
But they even handle racially charged fake news stories the same. When the easily debunked narrative about Border Patrol agents whipping migrants made the rounds, Biden was out in front of the facts and threatened that “those people will pay.”
That self-righteous and ill-informed stance echoed the way Obama handled a situation during his presidency where police responded to a neighbor’s call of a possible burglary only to find a black professor trying to break into his own property.
Though the police were simply trying to ascertain whether the man did indeed own the home, accusations of racial profiling were flying and Obama ran with the narrative, declaring those police officers involved “acted stupidly” without regard to the facts of the case.
It seems that having Biden in office is akin to a third term for Obama, though he’s the older and clunkier model in many ways.
Pelosi probably didn’t have all of this in mind when she said they were working toward Obama’s agenda and likely used the wrong name because she’s old and has been in politics forever — but she was onto something.
It seems that stopped clocks and memory-challenged octogenarians occasionally get things right, even if it’s only by accident.
Critics Pan Biden’s Claim That $3.5 Trillion Spending Bill Costs ‘Zero’
President Joe Biden is taking fire for comments he made about his $3.5 trillion legislation just as the bill faces a deeply split Congress.
Biden made headlines for claiming the bill would cost “zero dollars,” despite media reports and members of both parties commonly naming the bill’s cost at $3.5 trillion for the last several months.
“My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars,” Biden wrote on Twitter. “Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America. And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.”
The administration argues tax increases will offset the bill’s expenses, something that is very much in flux given Democrats’ hesitancy about parts of the bill, and the taxes to pay for it.
Even still, critics took issue with the claim of a zero cost, even if Biden does manage to include enough tax increases to fund the legislation.
“The $3.5 trillion in spending and tax credits combined with at least $2 trillion in tax hikes will add to the debt and have a tremendous cost to the economy and to the health of American families,” David Ditch, a budget expert at the Heritage Foundation, said.
“The taxes will hit families taking home as little as $30,000 per year, violating President Biden’s promise, reduce private sector investments that create jobs and opportunities for workers, and put America at a disadvantage with our global competitors. Huge increases in welfare spending will discourage work and make families increasingly dependent on government, which is exactly the wrong approach to increasing wealth for low-income households.”
“The bottom line is that the costs are real and deserve more attention from the media,” he added.
Earlier this month, Democrats proposed raising the top tax rates for individuals to 39.6% from 37%, and for corporations to 26.5% from 21%.
Some have estimated the package will exceed $3.5 trillion costs. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated the bill could cost $5.5 trillion over 10 years.
“All government spending consumes resources taken from the private sector and thus would generally shrink private GDP,” said Chris Edwards, an economic expert at the Cato Institute.
“Contrary to Biden, $3.5 trillion more government spending would likely cost the private economy not just $3.5 trillion but probably more than that. That’s because extracting every additional $1 of taxes causes about $1.50 of damage or ‘deadweight losses’ to the private economy. When taxes rise, individuals and businesses reduce their productive activities and private output falls.”
The overall price tag has been a key sticking point for Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, both of whom have explicitly said they cannot vote for the measure because of it’s $3.5 trillion cost. A less expensive plan may be able to get their vote, they said.
“These are not indications of an economy that requires trillions in additional spending,” Manchin said. “Every elected leader is chosen to make difficult decisions. Adding trillions of dollars more to nearly $29 trillion of national debt, without any consideration of the negative effects on our children and grandchildren, is one of those decisions that has become far too easy in Washington. Given the current state of the economic recovery, it is simply irresponsible to continue spending at levels more suited to respond to a Great Depression or Great Recession – not an economy that is on the verge of overheating.”
Biden’s comments drew sharp pushback from Republican lawmakers.
“Joe Biden thinks his $3.5 trillion spending bill will cost ‘zero dollars,’” U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said. “Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi doesn’t want to ‘talk about numbers and dollars.’ Why can’t they just be honest? They’re going to raise your taxes.”
Business leaders also have criticized Biden’s spending plan, saying it poses a serious threat to the nation’s economy.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a six-figure ad campaign to warn Americans and lawmakers about the legislation.
“This reconciliation bill is effectively 100 bills in one representing every big government idea that’s never been able to pass in Congress,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne Clark said.
“The bill is an existential threat to America’s fragile economic recovery and future prosperity. We will not find durable or practical solutions in one massive bill that is equivalent to more than twice the combined budgets of all 50 states. The success of the bipartisan infrastructure negotiations provides a much better model for how Congress should proceed in addressing America’s problems.”
Critics also pointed to the inefficiency of the federal government, saying the money taken from the private sector is often wasted by officials.
“Some new government spending may be worth more than the private spending it displaces, but I have not seen any detailed cost-benefit analyses showing that is the case with the Democratic plans,” Edwards said.
“Democrats are simply guessing that their new spending is higher value than the private spending it will displace, but there is little or no evidence of that. Besides, if there was new, high-value spending that the government could do, then it would more efficiently be handled by state governments, not the horribly mismanaged federal government.”